CHARLESTOWN — A morning fire at a residence in Charlestown claimed the lives of two people as state emergency personnel continued to respond at the scene throughout the day.

Crews were called to a residence on Crown Point Drive shortly before 7 a.m. on Thursday after receiving a report of smoke from a mobile home, the State Fire Marshal’s Office said in news release late Thursday afternoon.

When Charlestown firefighters gained entry into the residence they found a deceased man inside and after the fire was “suppressed” they found a second victim, a woman, the Fire Marshal’s Office said.

Positive identification of the victims and cause and manner of their deaths are pending an autopsy, which will take place at the New Hampshire State Medical Examiner’s Office in Concord on Friday.

The owner of the residence was away at the time but the fatalities involved two people who were inside the residence at the time of the fire, according to Todd Tewksbury Jr., a next-door neighbor of the residence.

Tewksbury, who said the owner of the home that caught fire is a cousin, said that he was awakened at around 7 a.m. by the barking of his dog. When he got up to check what it was that had excited his dog he saw a fire truck parked in his driveway.

He went outside and saw the neighboring residence ablaze, Tewksbury said.

“There was smoke and flames coming out of the roof,” he said.

Tewksbury said he witnessed emergency crews trying to administer CPR to a man who was brought out from the residence.

“They tried for a very long time,” Tewksbury said of the emergency personnel attempting to revive the victim.

Fire and emergency vehicles crowded Crown Point Drive, a dead-end street of mobile homes off Old Claremont Road north of the center of Charlestown, for much of the  day.

Tewksbury said emergency responders had been alerted to the fire by people in the neighborhood who had been out walking in the morning.

He said the owner of the residence, his cousin, had been notified by other family members about the fire and was on the way back to her residence on Thursday afternoon. 

The investigation into the origin and cause of the fire is active and ongoing by the Fire Marshal’s Office and the Charlestown Fire and Police departments.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.